Stuff

This morning’s YouGov poll for the Sun had topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 40%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 12%. For the time being at least we seem to have settled into a Labour lead of about 8 points in YouGov’s daily polling.

To pick up on another couple of questions from earlier in the week, on the suggestion by Len McCluskey that there should be a general strike, 57% of people said they would oppose a general strike with 27% in support. Naturally large majorities of Conservative and Lib Dem supporters were opposed, amongst Labour supporters 49% said they would support a general strike, 33% were opposed. Ed Miliband has totally dismissed the idea of a general strike and said it would a terrible idea – asked before Miliband commented, 40% of people said that Labour should oppose any such strike, 21% that they should support it, 27% that Labour should remain neutral.

On the same poll, George Osborne continued to be narrowly preferred to Ed Balls as best Chancellor, 29% to 24%. Asked the same question about whether people would prefer George Osborne or Alistair Darling as Chancellor, Darling is narrowly ahead 25% to 29%. The contrast isn’t vast, but obviously Darling does appeal to some parts that Ed Balls does not.

266 Responses to “YouGov/Sun – CON 32, LAB 40, LD 11, UKIP 12”

@ PAULCROFT……….A pleasure to do business my friend, and to express my appreciation in, shall we say ,a more tangible way, I will express to you, FOC, a case of the finest single malt whisky, produced in a small North Korean distillery that I am privileged to be part owner of, ( if you get my drift ;-) )

@ PAULCROFT………..I feel that perhaps Ed M is lashing about a bit at the moment, like one of those police firearms training courses, where cardboard cut-outs spring out and your choice is between friendly and dangerous, he is firing from the hip.
The footie thing, I’ve passed on to my friend Roman, he has experience.

Yes as Ashcroft says, time is not on the Tories’ side. They have the autumn budget statement 2013 and budget in March 2014.
I don’t know what can be done there that hasn’t been tried already. Big tax giveaway? It is possible, but it would mean abandoning the austerity rhetoric.

And that is it, apart from unexpected events, which are, well, not to be expected.

@HAL
Yes as Ashcroft says, time is not on the Tories’ side. They have the autumn budget statement 2013 and budget in March 2014.
I don’t know what can be done there that hasn’t been tried already. Big tax giveaway? It is possible, but it would mean abandoning the austerity rhetoric.
And that is it, apart from unexpected events, which are, well, not to be expected.

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Never underestimate the Conservative Party’s ruthless determination to win elections first and worry over the consequences later. It has worked well for them for the better part of a hundred and fifty years.

“The UK’s carbon footprint has increased over the
past two decades, as growth in imported emissions has more than offset reductions in production emissions.”

“Our analysis suggests that the UK’s carbon footprint has increased by around 10% since 1993, as growth in imported emissions more than offset the 19% reduction in production emissions. As a result, the UK is now one of the world’s largest net importers
of emissions , with a carbon footprint that is around 80% larger than its production emissions, reflecting the relatively small share of manufacturing in UK GDP.”

Essex ought to be one of UKIP’s very best results in the local elections. A combination of Conservative heartland and C2 Labour supporters. I wouldn’t bet against them gaining seats in the likes of Castle Point for example.

So the fact that that county is declaring much earlier than others could lead to a quite misleading initial media narrative on the results, if the results in Essex are assumed to be typical.

Natalie Portman: too busy with projects in the film industry.
Natalie Wood: no longer with us after a boating incident.
Natalie Clein: only engages in politics relating to string instruments, which seems to me to be an electoral non-starter in the current economic climate.

I haven’t yet been able to rule out Natalie Haynes, Natalie Wheen or Natalie Imbruglia…

@Colin – that’s an interesting report, but not really that interesting. It’s completely to be expected, and of course we are increasingly off shoring emissions and environmental impacts as we increase environmental protection here, yet accept ‘free’ trade in goods with no requirements on parallel production standards overseas.

The only controversial comment I guess I could make would be to give thanks for all those turbines – without them, the figures would have been even worse!

If you are anything like me, you might find this all a bit depressing. I genuinely don’t know what the answer is. We want more ‘stuff’, and we will face up to the impacts, only so long as it doesn’t affect price.

The House of Lords environment committee came up with a similarly depressing report a few years ago, when they suggested that promoting energy conservation was of little environmental benefit, as when consumers saved money on energy, they just spent it on more carbon consuming things.

Whenever I think of this I keep coming back to the only possible solution (and it really isn’t that possible) which is to price carbon and give everyone an allowance. Those of us who choose not to fly, who hate fitted kitchens and endless ads for sofas, who might restrict family size, not own cars, or generally choose to consume little, would trade our carbon for those who want more, and the price exerts a pressure on emissions in classical economics style, regardless of where the carbon is produced.

In the UK context, this would boost our economy in relative terms, as lower emission UK produced goods would attract a competitive market price over goods produced in ‘dirty’ countries, helping us to repatriate employment, and in theory at least, carbon allowances provide a viable means to set emissions limits and drive innovation through market forces, rather than government directive.

Is this realistic? We accepted rationing in wartime, but I rather think carbon rationing is pie in the sky at present. The amount of steam that would blow from Richard Littlejon’s ears alone would be enough to seal long term global warming on it’s own if any government ever proposed this.

@AW
Fair enough. Admittedly I have no inside knowledge of the local election specifics in Canvey Island, so I bow to your judgement. But I had in mind the example of Bob Spink, who defected as an MP from the Cons to UKIP before severing his links with them and then gained 27% as an Independent at the 2010 GE, finishing 2nd behind to Cons’ 44%. I think that shows the sort of potential for non-Conservative right wing Eurosceptic candidates in seats with that sort of Essex demographic in general, even if the specific example is misplaced.

Do you have any idea whether Bob Spink has departed the political scene now?

“Never underestimate the Conservative Party’s ruthless determination to win elections first and worry over the consequences later. It has worked well for them for the better part of a hundred and fifty years”. a John Murphy

Back to the Osborne, Balls, Darling thing; Sunny Hundal has piece in the Graun which, in conjunction with Lord Ashcroft’s piece, gives some food for thought.

The Tories are running out of time; & it may be too late for them to change their narrative on the economy.

However, Tories are convinced this doesn’t matter because: “Labour should be much further ahead at the midpoint”.

But, given Labour were the incumbents when the global banking crash happened, the Tories should be much further ahead on the economy at this point. Some polls have shown Labour neck & neck on the economy (even when it’s framed as C&O v the 2 Eds).

It is very difficult to see how they can do worse in 2015 and frankly just a 5% increase in their share on 2010 (currently up 10-12%) will see them as at least the biggest single party.

Also in the current economic circumstances I don’t see how any government would be able to enjoy an increased electoral share and as this One has consistently failed to hit the targets it set itself I really can’t see that this is likely to happen in 2015.

IMHO a 35% poll for Labour with an improved UKIP performance and LD down by around a third would see Labour in with a perfectly workable majority for a full 5 Year term

Labour are polling worse on the economy than they were before the 2010 general election, despite all of Osborne’s failures. So I don’t think the Eds can afford to be complacent about this. The public seem to find the moral rhetoric of austerity convincing, and Labour have not been advocating the alternative effectively enough to change their minds. All the numbers have been on their side thus far and they’re still losing the argument.

If you break down the economic figures, the Tories do better in a head to head comparison every time, but the “Labour would either be better or make no difference” group is significantly larger. That looks to me like an economic lead that could easily be swamped by a general wave of discontent- if you think all the parties are equally ineffective, why not chuck the incumbents out?

I think that Labour’s economic competence polling demonstrates a failure to flesh out an genuine alternative to austerity.

Labour has tried to straddled the plan to reduce spending, while not cutting too much. Call it triangulation or fence-sitting, but that what it is. They have opposed many cuts, but have not really explained an alternative (I wish they would).

It’s simple. They have to say how much they would spend, in which areas and the how the taxation would be raised to pay for it.

Overall, the poll might be 29 % to 24 % in favour of [George Osborne], but a whacking 47 % don’t know. My summary would be the public think little of either.

Whether the economic performance of the Conservatives will lead them to win in 2015, I am seriously doubtful.

Interesting article in the telegraph today from Dan Hodges, asking which side Ed Miliband might land in terms of policy and looking at the recent potential split with Blairites and some Unions bosses., i.e. centre or left. I guess the relevance on here is how and whether it would affect overall polling. On the on hand you might argue it has to be centre ground to be ‘One Nation’, but on the other hand you might say people got fatigue with New Labour. My gut feeling is it would still be a centrist position that would give them the best chance of victory. Would be great to see some poling on it, but I guess that’s unlikely.

Ending the split of the left gives Miliband more leeway but he probably won’t tack that much to the left because of the babyboomers. The election after next is the one where real change may start to occur. ..

Demographically I think you might be correct. I see little chance despite the talk, of an even moderately let govt in 2015, no matter who gets in, but certainly more chance around 2020, especially if things remain tough throughout the next parliament.

Getting fusion to work is a gargantuan challenge. The payoff is potentially huge because you get a lot of energy from not much stuff and a lot less carbon and waste.

But it’s a nightmare. You need high temperatures and pressures for fusion, which is fine in the sun but hard to manage such pressures on earth so temperatures need to be even higher.

The extremely hot gas plasma that results will melt anything it touches so you have to try and confine it with magnetic fields. If you let the plasma temperature drop the fusion ceases which is awkward as you need to keep adding pellets of fuel which tend to cool the plasma. The reaction produces high energy neutrons that stream out degrading the surrounding structure.

There are potential alternative fusion methods though but they aren’t getting that much funding. And instead of fusion, standard fission using Thorium. Which is more plentiful than uranium, produces less nasty waste, is proven to work, is inherently safer and can be shut down and restarted at will…

Why do you see a leftist platform more likely than 2015? Who will deliver this leftist platform? The same Labour government that’s just disillusioned most of its supporters by following the same austerity policies they’d been repeatedly denouncing?

For what it’s worth I think 2020 will probably see a Tory return as by then we’ll be well on the US-style treadmill of electing liberals (Democrats, Labour) to replace right-wingers to then despair at their uselessness and stay at home at the next election letting the right-wingers back in.

@Rich
Just seen it’s on a demographic basis – although there should be enough for a Labour victory on a leftist platform now on those terms, but it’s not a possibility – for the same reason it won’t be a possibility in 2020 (ie an entirely middle-class political class couldn’t stomach the possibility).

You are right: Labour’s current position is less austerity than the coalition but not disputing the necessity of it.

The one economic plan that really would work is to increase spending but not increase taxation. That seems the settled view amongst economists of repute. (“The fiscal multiplier at zero interest rates is greater than one”). But very difficult to convince the public that this would work (I expect it is impossible to convince even the erudite readers of this blog).

So I expect the Labour strategy will be to muddle through with the less austerity plan and then do the stimulus anyway if they win the election. A more controversial line would be to put some stimulus measures in the election manifesto, it would have the benefit of strong differentiation from the other parties.

One thing is for sure: the Labour plan will not be revealed until shortly before the election.

Iter is classical fusion and is the continuation of many other fusion efforts.

There is also a fairly expensive and well funded laser fusion project at, I think it’s called the National Ignition Facility in the US. This works by focusing lots (about 400?) lasers on a target which is understandably vaporised at an extremely high temperature. They have got the lasers mostly working, so maybe they are getting there.

There is also Bussard Polywell fusion – the idea arrived from a US Navy project. Bussard died but the Navy about 3 years ago decided to give it a go at building the Polywell he designed but never built that might be able to achieve fusion.

Finally there is Pons and Fleischmann style cold fusion, which has not gone away and people keep claiming anomalous results but it is scoffed at by many scientists because it sounds extremely unlikely.

The Chinese and the Norwegians are the one’s putting the most effort into Thorium at the moment – although there is a research facility at Daresbury in Cheshire (I pass it on the train in the morning) that is trying to achieve one of the steps to make a more advanced Thorium reactor (eg. the Norwegian test just has it in an old reactor that was built for Uranium.